Here

Some days I just want to get out of America.

    Even the average "poor" person in my country is in the top 5% of worldwide wealth. This wealth means there is enormous pressure to have certain things, wear certain clothes, go certain places, and look a certain way, to have lots of friends and a special activity that you shine at. I feel this pressure every day. I see girls around me that are prettier than I am. I see them texting a bunch of admiring guys. I see them with more Facebook friends than I have, and a LOT more profile picture likes, and it's hard not to be envious.

     I know these things aren't important. Almost every day I read Psalm 90 to remind me of how futile  human existence is-"For all our days pass away under Your wrath; we bring our years to end like a sigh. The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty, yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away." Looking back on the annals of history makes my mind spin: so many centuries have come and gone, so many billions of people have lived and loved and died. Who knows them now? Their names are almost all forgotten. One day grass will grow over me, covering my life and my memory. The people I worry so much about impressing will be gone, too. Ultimately the only way my finite existence can become of any importance is by serving the infinite God. So it doesn't really matter when I flip open my phone and there are no texts waiting for me, right? Except it's hard to align my hopelessly illogical feelings with what my head knows.

    It feels like if I could just be packed into one of those little Ugandan churches and feel the thunder of their bilingual worship roll over me, then I could finally rest in the heart of God. If I could experience their poverty and hold their dying babies and see the joy they still have because the Lord is their strength, then I could trust Him. If I didn't have to worry about the little things like mascara and cell numbers, then I could do great things for the Kingdom of Christ. Except, that's not how it works.

    I am discontent not because of where I live but because I don't really believe that God is enough. I am "prone to leave the God I love". If I run away to Uganda, my sin will chase me there. God has planted me in America, in my family, my neighborhood, my church, my city, to reach out to the people around me. Because He knows best where I can glorify Him. He knows how my tiny piece is going to fit into the grand puzzle of His plan. So HERE is where I am. It's a good place.

And you know?

God is just as much HERE as He is in Uganda. He is here in every passing face, in every Word of Scripture, in every moment. I just have to look for Him.

Where shall I go from Your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from Your presence? If I ascend to Heaven, You are there. If I make my bed in Sheol, You are there. If I take the wings of the dawn, even if I dwell in the deepest parts of the sea, even there Your hand shall reach me and Your right hand shall cover me.

 

(Psalm 139:7-10)

Lover of Light

     I finally finished Les Miserables. When I started it a few months ago, I thought I would never finish. Ryan and I counted: EIGHTY-SIX Kindle pages for ONE PERCENT of the book! And when I finished, I wished it would never end. Les Mis is one of the most beautiful, powerful books I have ever read. Victor Hugo examines the world through the lens of man's soul. The lens isn't rose-colored; Hugo lays bare the depravity of our disfigured human hearts, and the lies and atrocities proceeding from them. But at the same time, Les Mis does not abide in the shadows.

     Probably the most heart-wrenching storyline is Fantine's. Fantine sold her hair, her teeth, and her love to provide for her estranged daughter Cossette. The people of Montreuil-sur-Mer saw the gaps in Fantine's mouth and pronounced her grotesque. They saw her on the prostitute's corner and, in all their moral virtuosity, declared her disgraceful. Everyone who could have lifted her up instead passed by with averted eyes. I wept, because I saw the whole picture of Fantine's life. I saw that Fantine was used and abandoned by Cossette's father. I saw that she had placed her daughter with a foster family to keep her from the shame of illgitimacy. I saw that she was decieved into believing that her Cossette was desperately ill and in need of expensive medicine. I saw Cossette in perfect health, being used for slave labor while Fantine's money lined the pockets of a criminal innkeeper. I saw the sacrificial love for her daughter that Fantine lived by. But the townspeople only saw the shame Fantine had been forced into, and the hatred their shunning spawned in her. Hugo writes, "Those who do not see, do not weep."

     There are so many things we do not see. I don't know the stories of the people who sit on off Judson Road with misspelled signs, or the homeless man whose eyes I saw peering out from a pile of cardboard and towels under a downtown bridge, or the rude old man in the grocery store, or the barely dressed girl in Wal-Mart. Certainly they are sinners. We all are. There was a great deal of darkness in Fantine. But somewhere in Fantine, in those broken people around me, is a light, a trace of the image of God. I want to see their pain, their stories, their hidden light. I want to be a part of bringing out that light, seeing it redeemed, like Monsieur Madeline rescued Fantine and brought out her light.

     2nd Corinthians 5:16 says, "From now on" [now that the love of Christ controls us] "we regard no one according to the flesh". We don't see people the same way. Verse 18: "All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to Himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation." Through Christ, God has brought me back to Himself and given me new life. Now it is my blessing and duty, granted by Him, to bring people to His "wonderful light" (1st Peter 2:9).I cannot see everything, but I know the Light, and because of my great God I can see Him everywhere, even in the blackest corners of the blackest souls.

I will strive to be a Lover of the Light.

Art as Imitation

     This year, I've been able to teach art to my younger brothers, and some of my cousins. I'm not even really a very good artist-I started drawing because it was something my brother could do better than me, and Heaven forbid that! But I do love painting, and I have a tiny bit of knowledge to pass on.

            Art is what I'm drawn to-literature most of all, but drawing and painting and music have their place in my heart, too. If I have free time, I hole up in my room with my violin or pencil or most often laptop to materialize the ideas in my head. But I came to a point where I started to wonder, is this a waste? As a Christian, I am "called to proclaim the excellencies of Him who called [me] out of darkness into His wonderful light" (1st Peter 2:9). Artistic expression is fun. It's invigorating and freeing. But in the end, isn't it just selfish indulgence, like watching TV or wasting time on Facebook? Shouldn't I  be out preaching the Gospel instead?

The answer is yes, and no.

    The goal is to glorify God, to proclaim His excellencies. Preaching the Gospel is absolutely one of the most important ways to do that, but it isn't the only way. Colossians 3:17 says "whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God". Eating and drinking can glorify God. So can art.

    God is an artist, a Creator. He "formed me in my mother's womb" (Psalm 139). The sky is declaring his handiwork (Psalm 19).

He fashioned this ladybug, and

He delighted in sculpting this little cutie.

    Edith Schaeffer was so right when she said, "A Christian, who realizes that he has been made in the image of the Creator God...[is] meant to be creative on a finite level."

     I can write words that tell of God's greatness, and weave stories that point people to Him. I'm doing a Bible study with a girl in my neighborhood, and when we get together, we're going to paint. Whether your art is soccer 

or water polo

or ballet

or carpentry

or drawing 

or harmonica playing 

or baking 

or interior decorating, you can use it to draw people in: into yourself, or into God. God who gave you the abilities. God who is the first Creator, and who everyone, whether they realize it or not, creates in imitation of.

Wheels and Winds and Wandering Souls

There’s a sign tied to the ride’s green gate. It’s fluttering and hard to read, but I finally make out “Ferris Wheel Closed Due to High Winds”. I try to ask the man running the Ferris Wheel if it will open again soon, but he is inside the shut gate, eating a sandwich that he appears very absorbed in. Sierra starts walking away, but I stay rooted and she’s holding my hand, so she has to stay, too. I stare at the sign and wish for the high winds to settle down to a nice, gentle breeze.

     I feel Sierra backing in to me. An old man is trying to grab her hand. I pull her close, but don’t bother running away. I could knock the man over, that shows how frail he is. And he’s old-seventy or so. His dark, wrinkly skin hangs on his arms more like a loose-fitting jacket than skin. He stretches his gnarled, trembling hand out to mine. The fingers are twisted in directions fingers were never meant to go. Some of his nails are an inch long; others are broken off in rough, jagged lines. I gently push the withered hand away. He grins at me, a toothless grin, and then totters off. I feel heavy inside.

        Once he had been as innocent as people get, only crying and sleeping and eating and wanting to be held and loved. I wonder what brought him from that to this, stumbling around drunk at a carnival in rags and bare feet. Did he choose a hard life for himself, or had he never known anything else? And if he had never known anything else-maybe his father had beaten him, or maybe he didn’t know his father at all-then why am I walking around in new shoes with a wad of bills in my pocket? Why him and not me? I try to follow the weather-beaten man with my eyes, but he is lost in the back-and-forth swarm of people.

      Suddenly the carnival’s neon colors seem garish and gaudy. There’s no enchantment to the music-box tunes or painted ponies or shouts of the balloon man, and the popcorn smell feels overdone. All I see is the grey concrete underneath me and the faces going by. So many faces. So many souls. And so, so much wandering.